Frustrated Air Travelers, the T.S.A. Chief Shares Your Pain

JOHN S. PISTOLE was named administrator of the Transportation Security Administration in July 2010 after 26 years at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He recently answered questions about the agency’s policies. The interview was edited and condensed.

Q. The experience of going through airport security has become a long, annoying, sometimes arbitrary, and often inconsistent experience. Why is that?

A. When I got here, there was still in large part a one-size-fits-all approach in place. Meaning whether you’re a 200,000 mile-a-year flier or a once-a-year traveler that knows nothing about aviation security, we basically treated you the same. And I frankly didn’t see that as being sustainable long term. What we’ve been working on in earnest over the past two years is what we call risk-based security. Our job is not to eliminate risk but to try to manage or mitigate risk.

Q. That’s the basis for the PreCheck program?

A. It’s based on the notion that the vast majority, if not everybody on any given day, almost 1.8 million people that we screen every day, are not terrorists. They simply want to get from Point A to Point B safely. We started with the elite frequent fliers. Because we knew from intelligence that they were less likely to be a possible terrorist.

Q. When will the program cover international travel?

A. We reached an agreement with the European Union, Canada and Australia for them to accept PreCheck passengers from the United States. So starting in the near future, those people that are part of PreCheck or Global Entry will be allowed to go through PreCheck when they fly internationally.

Q. Will you be expanding the program beyond the current 40 airports?

A. We started with the 20 largest airports. It doesn’t make any business sense to be in the smallest ones. We’re at the point that we will only add airports selectively if there is a business case that can justify it. But we have a goal to have 25 percent of all travelers in the United States by the end of the year go through some form of expedited physical screening.

Q.How much waiting time will all this cut?

A. It all depends on the airport, and on the time of the day, or what day of the week it is. If you’re at Atlanta Hartsfield [Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport] on Monday morning at 7 a.m., instead of just one PreCheck lane, we expanded to three or four lanes because there are so many people coming through. As the numbers increase we will open more and more PreCheck lanes in existing airports. We are building as we go.

Q. Will you ever lift the ban on liquids or allow people to keep their shoes on as the Europeans do?

A. We know because of Richard Reid [the so-called shoe bomber] in December 2001 that nonmetallic explosives can be concealed in shoes or in underwear. That is still a viable threat, as we’ve seen twice in the last three years.

Q.If you keep expanding your trusted-traveler program and keep including more people, isn’t there a risk or a potential for bad guys to also become part of it?

A. From a statistical standpoint, I suppose that’s true. But because of the prescreening we are doing, we have a much better idea of who they are and what possible threat they may pose. Under risk-based security, the question is let’s stop looking for prohibited items and let’s look more at the person.

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John Pistole, head of the Transportation Security Administration.CreditSaul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Q. Do you worry that all the layers of security in place over the years — the liquids ban, the shoes — are too reactive and backward-looking and don’t give you enough leeway to look at future threats?

A. We don’t want terrorists to repeat something they’ve attempted or been successful doing in the past. All you have to do is look at the past three plots attempted against Western aviation.

Q. Is the aviation sector still a target that justifies all these policies?

A. Absolutely, there is no question about that. The bottom line is that U.S. aviation is the gold standard target for certain terrorist groups, and they are actively plotting on how they can conduct a successful attack. And that is what concerns me.

Q. But still the tolerance of the public is not infinite. Passengers could stop flying as much. Congress could step in and say the T.S.A. is overdoing it. Do you keep this in mind or do you not think about it?

A. Sure, I think one of T.S.A.’s jobs is to promote the free movement of people and goods with the best security. I didn’t see the one-size-fits-all as being sustainable. Clearly treating everybody as a potential terrorist, I didn’t see this as being sustainable.

Q. Still some say what T.S.A. does is just security theater.

A. I strongly disagree with that assessment. Every morning, I start with a classified intelligence brief. That’s the starting point of the highest risk. This whole notion is dispelled by the fact we still get on average four weapons at checkpoints and 2,000 small knives.

Q. In a recent week, T.S.A. found 44 guns, and 38 of them were loaded. Do people not realize they are carrying these weapons?

A. They forgot. That’s the general response. Or they blame it on a spouse packing their bag. Once we had a guy with a shoulder holster, and he took off his jacket and he starts going through the metal detector. The first rule of gun safety is know where your weapon is.

Q. And the law here is clear, right? It’s illegal to have a gun on a plane.

A. Yes. You are not allowed to attempt to get onto a plane with a gun.

Q. You’ve been in the news lately because you wanted to allow small pocketknives aboard. Why did you suspend that decision?

A. We announced a temporary delay for more feedback. My concern is we’ve been distracted by things that have not caused catastrophic failures in aircrafts.

Q. How are you affected by the mandatory budget cuts known as sequestration?

A. We didn’t have to furlough anyone. We are managing the sequester cuts by limiting overtime by our officers and by restricting new hires.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page F7 of the New York edition with the headline: Frustrated Air Travelers, the T.S.A. Chief Shares Your Pain. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe